Thursday, 24 January 2008

Lay off Linda

Would newspapers be better off with reader-appointed public editors or ombudsmen or even self-appointed ones like me?

I bet if you stuck this blog on the home page of http://www.iht.com/ it would soon be getting a lot more traffic than a lot of the blogs and reader discussion forums currently on it. (Often the same old people using it as a private chat room: please, someone from http://www.iht.com/, slip me some fun data at ihtreaders@gmail.com, liven things up a bit for readers of this blog.) Admittedly I'd have to actually start giving it some proper attention instead of randomly ranting but you see my point.

If you want community among a dispersed global audience, build it, don't live within your own gated community on a couple of floors in Neuilly.

Neuilly, for God's sake, home of Sarko, hardly the centre of branhce Europe, especially when filled with editors who don't speak French.

Enough. On the subject of public editors...

Lay Off LindaWhy doesn't the New York Times stand up for Linda Greenhouse?It took some kind of amazing footwork for Clark Hoyt, the New York Times public editor, to pull off what's turning into an annual ritual: dragging the paper's multiple-award-winning Supreme Court correspondent out to the woodshed for appearing to have opinions in her private life or—even worse—sharing a toothpaste tube with those who do.I have absolutely no idea what all this is about but some of you may be interested. What I do like are these public-editors and ombudsmen, like having an oil exec work for the department of energy on self-regulation in the oil industry.http://www.slate.com/id/2182077/nav/tap3/